BEIJING (AP) — The International Monetary Fund appealed Thursday to Washington for more stable management of the nation's finances as Asian stock markets rose after U.S. leaders agreed to avoid a debt default and end a 16-day government shutdown.
With only hours to spare until the $16.7 trillion debt limit was reached, Congress passed and sent a waiting President Barack Obama legislation Wednesday night to allow more government borrowing and reopen public agencies.
The debt standoff had rattled global markets and threatened to erode the image of U.S. Treasury debt as a risk-free place for governments and investors to store trillions of dollars in foreign reserves. Few expected a U.S. default but some investors sold Treasurys over concern about possible delayed repayment and put off buying stocks that might be exposed to an American economic downturn.
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde welcomed the deal but said the shaky American economy needs more stable long-term finances. The deal only permits the Treasury to borrow normally through Feb. 7 and fund the government through Jan. 15.
"It will be essential to reduce uncertainty surrounding the conduct of fiscal policy by raising the debt limit in a more durable manner," Lagarde said in a statement.
The Tokyo stock market, the region's heavyweight, gained as much as 1.1 percent Thursday. Markets in China, Hong Kong and South Korea also rebounded from losses.
Still, the congressional cliffhanger might dent longer-term confidence in American government debt, a cornerstone of global credit markets, prompting creditors to demand higher interest.
"With the U.S. government's antics, the risks go up, so the cost of money could go up too," said Nick Chen, managing partner of Taipei law firm Pamir Law Group.
Big Asian exporters including China and South Korea also faced the risk of a slump in global demand if a U.S. default had disrupted other economies.
Martin Hennecke, chief economist at The Henley Group, a financial advisory firm in Hong Kong, expressed exasperation at what he said was a failure by U.S. politicians to fix underlying budget problems in the world's biggest economy.
"It's just show business, to distract from real issues and keep the public busy with nonsense," said Hannecke. "What they should negotiate is how to make a bankruptcy negotiation of the United States, because they are broke. That's the issue. It's not about some stupid debt ceiling."
China and Japan, which each own more than $1 trillion of Treasury securities, appealed earlier to Washington for a quick settlement. There was no indication whether either government had altered its debt holdings. South Korea's government has $51.4 billion of Treasury securities while Taiwan has $185 billion.
Earlier, China's official Xinhua News Agency had accused Washington of jeopardizing other countries' dollar-denominated assets.
It called for "building a de-Americanized world," though analysts say global financial markets have few alternatives to the dollar for trading and U.S. government debt for holding reserves.
In Israel, a key American ally in the Middle East, commentators said the fight hurt America's overall image.
"There is no doubt that damage was done here to the image of American economic stability," Israel's economic envoy to Washington, Eli Groner, told Israel's Army Radio. "It's not good for the financial markets, not in the United States and not around the world."
China and other central banks might want to move assets into other currencies, said Hannecke. However, he said their dollar-based holdings are so huge they cannot sell without driving down prices.
Hennecke said he would advise clients to stop holding Treasurys.
"Why hold it?" he said. "There's no yield and inflation and interest rate risk are on the up."
___
AP Business Writers Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong and Youkyung Lee in Seoul and AP Writers Peter Enav in Taipei, Tim Sullivan in New Delhi and Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed.
LONDON – Releases from Daft Punk, David Bowie and the Arctic Monkeys have boosted sales of vinyl LPs in the U.K. this year.
Year-to-date, almost 550,000 records have been sold, the first time since 2003 that the half-million mark has been crossed in Britain, according to the Official Charts Company and industry group BPI.
The year-to-date vinyl sales figures reflect a year-over-year improvement of more than 100 percent, according to the date. LPs now account for 0.8 percent of all albums sold in the U.K. this year. As recently as 2007, that share had shrunk to just 0.1 percent.
With around 15,000 LPs currently being bought every week, BPI estimated that more than 700,000 units could be sold by year's end. That would be the highest full-year sales figure since 2001 and could potentially generate $19.2 million (£12 million) in revenue, the group said.
Record Store Day, a one-day celebration of independent record shops in April, alone generated $3.2 million (£2 million) in vinyl sales, according to the BPI.
Daft Punk leads the year-to-date vinyl sales chart with its album "Random Access Memories. Oasis holds the record for the two top-selling LPs since the Official Charts Company began tracking salles. Their "(What’s the Story) Morning Glory" has sold more vinyl records than any other release since 1994, followed by the band's "Definitely Maybe."
"The LP is back in the groove," said BPI CEO Geoff Taylor. "We're witnessing a renaissance for records -- they’re no longer retromania and are becoming the format of choice for more and more music fans."
He added: "Whilst sales only account for a small percentage of the overall market, vinyl sales are growing fast as a new generation discovers the magic of 12 inch artwork, liner notes and the unique sound of analog records, often accompanied by a download code for MP3s."
In an online survey of 1,700 U.K. vinyl buyers, the BPI found that seven in 10 people buy LPs at least once a month, and one in five make a vinyl purchase at least once a week. More than 85 percent said LPs were their favorite music format, with 47.5 percent saying that vinyl accounted for over half of their spending on music.
Not all buyers even own a turntable, as 3.7 percent of respondents in the survey said that they bought LPs despite not owning one. The poll also found that the typical vinyl buyer in Britain has 300 LPs and 80 singles in their collection.
New LPs from big stars are set to be released late this year ahead of the holiday season. Among them are albums from Arcade Fire, Paul McCartney and Pearl Jam.
Tal National is the most popular live act in the West African nation of Niger, and the band is ready to go global. Its third album, Kaani, is the first to get an international release, and it arrives just in time for the group's first U.S. tour.
The first thing that hits you when you listen to Tal National is the band's tightness and fiery energy; its guitar and percussion-driven grooves are bursting with exuberance.
The song "Wongharey" praises the fighters of Niger's history and thanks God that the country is at peace today. It is, but given the political tensions unfolding in West Africa these days, that peace is fragile. So it means a lot that Tal National includes members from all of Niger's major ethnic groups and creates songs in a variety of languages that celebrate the lives of their countrymen.
With a large, rotating lineup of multi-instrumentalists, this band is beloved in Niger for its epic live performances. The band's sound features shredding electric guitars, but it in no way mimics Western rock. The guitar tone is sharp and stinging, but the rhythms and melodies are rooted in local traditions; this really is African rock.
Tal National's leader, who goes by the name Almeida, has a somewhat surprising day job — he's been a judge for 20 years. Now, you might not want to have your case appear before a guy who plays five-hour concerts five nights a week, but based on this band's wisdom and openhearted vision for a peaceful, multiethnic Niger, I think I might just take that chance.
While 1970s horror is a long way from 1950s romantic comedy, SissySpacek’s performance in Brian De Palma’s Carrie left no less indelible an imprint on the role than, say, Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina or Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday. And as the folks behind the lifeless '90s remakes of those films learned the hard way, messing with a classic -- particularly one with such an iconic lead -- is a losing proposition. So it’s surprising that KimberlyPeirce’s respectful Carrie overhaul is as entertaining as it is, even if the prom-night bloodbath never escapes the long shadow of its predecessor.
Pauline Kael summed up the singular pleasures of the De Palma film, calling it “a terrifyingly lyrical thriller.” She went on to describe its “perverse mixture of comedy and horror and tension, like that of Hitchcock or Polanski, but with a lulling sensuousness.” The lyricism and playfulness are both in shorter supply here. But while the remake is at times too self-serious, it’s never boring or dumb, which is often the case with horror updates.
What’s more, it captures the tender, tortured mother-daughter conflict at the center of Stephen King’s indestructibly compelling story in vivid performances from Chloe Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore, as the title character and her nut-job religious-fanatic parent, Margaret White.
Having made only three features over 14 years, Peirce remains best known for the searing sensitivity of her 1999 breakout drama, Boys Don’t Cry, which like Carrie, is a story of outsider hostility taken to extremes. The pairing of a director new to the genre and the promise of a return to King’s source novel made it natural to expect a fresh stamp on the material. However, the remake is less faithful to the book than was the 2002 television version, with Angela Bettis and Patricia Clarkson. In fact it frequently seems like a slavish homage to De Palma’s film, recycling much of the same dialogue. Both adaptations share a screenwriter, Lawrence D. Cohen, working here with Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.
Perhaps the most startling departure is the prologue. In a scene lifted from the novel, Moore’s Bible-thumping Margaret wails her way through unassisted childbirth, alone in a clapboard suburban house that creaks and groans throughout the entire movie. She resists the urge to kill the consequence of her sin, and the baby of course grows up to be Moretz’s painfully shy telekinetic teen, Carrie.
Gym class becomes pool volleyball, teasing us with the queasy expectation that Carrie’s traumatic first experience of menstruation might happen right there in the shallow end. But Peirce sticks to the original model, ushering Carrie off to the showers, minus De Palma’s displays of slow-mo nudity.
The big difference this time around is that when Carrie’s terrified response to her first period makes her an instant laughing stock, one of the mean girls participating in her humiliation films the incident on her smartphone. When that video is posted online, Carrie’s mortification unleashes her telekinetic powers. She understands and masters those gifts far more intuitively than in previous versions, a choice that robs Moretz’s performance of some vulnerability.
Like last year’s off-Broadway attempt to salvage the legendary flop 1988 musical adaptation, this update again uses bullying in the age of social media to heighten Carrie’s victimization. But Peirce and her screenwriters mercifully refrain from hammering the contemporary relevance, keeping the influence of technology on the story to a minimum.
The basic plot points remain the same. Remorseful over her involvement in Carrie’s ordeal, willowy blonde Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde) persuades her jock dreamboat boyfriend Tommy Ross (Ansel Elgort) to take the lonely misfit to the prom. But what should be a glorious night for a girl finally given a taste of social acceptance and liberated from her abusive, overprotective mother instead goes horribly wrong. That’s thanks to the hateful scheme of class bitch Chris Hargensen (Portia Doubleday) and her vicious boyfriend Billy Nolan (Alex Russell).
Making Chris the spoilt daddy’s girl of a slick, bullying lawyer (an uncredited Hart Bochner) was a nice touch. But the high-school populace here is a colorless bunch, lacking the personality of their counterparts in the De Palma movie. The exception is Judy Greer, who brings warmth, female solidarity and smarts to her scenes as the concerned gym teacher (Betty Buckley in the original).
The film’s nods to De Palma are often amusing. “Red, it would be red,” hisses Margaret when she sees her daughter’s prom dress. “It’s pink,” murmurs Carrie in defiance, addressing a point that has perplexed horror fans for 37 years. Peirce also slips in a wink to another '70s genre landmark, The Exorcist, as Carrie sharpens her telekinesis skills with some bedroom levitation.
In general, the director goes for intensity grounded in reality, eschewing the usual fallback of jump scares and cheap shocks. The character-driven human story that interests her is that of a frightened outcast confused by what’s happening to her body, torn in her loyalty to a dangerously unhinged mother, and jolted by peer cruelty into violence. Some of the most effective scenes are those in which Carrie takes charge at home, stopping her mother in her tracks with some unholy tricks that feed Margaret’s escalating hysteria.
In a role that calls for over-the-top, Moore is terrific, bringing just the right hint of restraint. She’s less of a fire-and-brimstone loon than Piper Laurie in the 1976 film, but still plenty crazy, shuffling around the shadows like a J-horror ghoul. With her long witchy hair and dowdy sack-dresses, Margaret is an unnerving figure, railing against a godless world in a quiet mutter rather than a thunderous roar. Giving her a self-mutilation habit seems a bit much, but her troubled relationship with Carrie is deftly drawn, revealing the love and pain beneath the warped bid for salvation.
Moretz is an imperfect fit for the role but as always a captivating presence -- hunched over and folded in on herself in an effort to be invisible at school, or trembling at the damnation hurled by her mother until she summons the strength to fight back. She’s at her loveliest in the calm before the storm at the prom, when she finally trusts Tommy enough to relax and enjoy the magically unfamiliar sensation of being a normal teenager. She doesn’t come close to the heartbreaking fragility and ethereality of Spacek in the part, but who could?
Some will see it as an interesting choice and others a banal one that the filmmakers have rendered Carrie a more modern girl. When her moment of radiance at the prom was shattered, Spacek shifted into catatonic trance mode, virtually sleepwalking through Carrie’s trail of pitiless vengeance. Moretz puts the character in control of the paranormal hellfire she’s unleashing, twisting her head and arms in angular movements that are part alien, part Balinese dancer, part Norma Desmond.
Advancements in digital effects technology since prior versions mean the climactic mayhem predictably gets kicked up a few notches. Familiar as the developments inevitably are at this point, the prom scene is still suspenseful and horrifying, even if the action becomes too chaotic to catch everything that’s going on.
The aftermath is more uneven. Peirce indulges in silly excess in stretching out the payback dealt to vile Chris and Billy. Sometimes less is more. The fate of Margaret is better handled, with the director wisely borrowing from De Palma, who borrowed from Saint Sebastian imagery. However, a perfunctory snippet of Sue being questioned at the subsequent inquiry adds nothing, and a reference to the original’s closing scare is cheesy.
The movie looks polished and is well paced, though less sparing use of MarcoBeltrami’s lush score might not have been a bad idea. If De Palma’s version was one part adolescent dream, three parts nightmare, with a sly streak of satire running through it, Peirce’s is a more earnest yet still engrossing take on the story that should connect with contemporary teens. At the very least it might send fledgling horror buffs scurrying to their Netflix queues to watch a vintage masterpiece of the genre.
Production: MGM, Misher Films Cast: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Alex Russell, Gabriella Wilde, Ansel Elgort, Barry Shabaka Henley Director: Kimberly Peirce Screenwriters: Lawrence D. Cohen, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, based on the novel by Stephen King Producer: Kevin Misher Executive producer: J. Miles Dale Director of photography: Steve Yedlin Production designer: Carol Spier Costume designer: Luis Sequeira Editors: Lee Percy, Nancy Richardson Visual effects supervisor: Dennis Berardi Music: Marco Beltrami
A grand unified theory of exotic superconductivity?
Public release date: 17-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: Karen McNulty Walsh kmcnulty@bnl.gov 631-344-8350 DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
Scientists introduce a general theoretical approach that describes all known forms of high-temperature superconductivity and their 'intertwined' phases
UPTON, NY -- Years of experiments on various types of high-temperature (high-Tc) superconductorsmaterials that offer hope for energy-saving applications such as zero-loss electrical power lines -- have turned up an amazing array of complex behaviors among the electrons that in some instances pair up to carry current with no resistance, and in others stop the flow of current in its tracks. The variety of these exotic electronic phenomena is a key reason it has been so hard to identify unifying concepts to explain why high-Tc superconductivity occurs in these promising materials.
Now Samus Davis, a physicist who's conducted experiments on many of these materials at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cornell University, and Dung-Hai Lee, a theorist at DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, postulate a set of key principles for understanding the superconductivity and the variety of "intertwined" electronic phenomena that applies to all the families of high-Tc superconductors. They describe these general concepts in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences October 10, 2013.
"If we are right, this is kind of the 'light at the end of the tunnel' point," said Davis. "After decades of wondering which are the key things we need to understand high-Tc superconductivity and which are the peripheral things, we think we have identified what the essential elements are."
Said Lee, "The next step is to be able to predict which other materials will have these essential elements that will drive high Tc superconductivity -- and that ability is still under development."
The role of magnetism
In all known types of high-Tc superconductors -- copper-based (cuprate), iron-based, and so-called heavy fermion compounds -- superconductivity emerges from the "extinction" of antiferromagnetism, the ordered arrangement of electrons on adjacent atoms having anti-aligned spin directions. Electrons arrayed like tiny magnets in this alternating spin pattern are at their lowest energy state, but this antiferromagnetic order is not beneficial to superconductivity.
However if the interactions between electrons that cause antiferromagnetic order can be maintained while the actual order itself is prevented, then superconductivity can appear. "In this situation, whenever one electron approaches another electron, it tries to anti-align its magnetic state," Davis said. Even if the electrons never achieve antiferromagnetic order, these antiferromagnetic interactions exert the dominant influence on the behavior of the material. "This antiferromagnetic influence is universal across all these types of materials," Davis said.
Many scientists have proposed that these antiferromagnetic interactions play a role in the ability of electrons to eventually pair up with anti-aligned spins -- a condition necessary for them to carry current with no resistance. The complicating factor has been the existence of many different types of "intertwined" electronic phases that also emerge in the different types of high-Tc superconductors -- sometimes appearing to compete with superconductivity and sometimes coexisting with it.
Intertwined phases
In the cuprates, for example, regions of antiferromagnetic alignment can alternate with "holes" (vacancies formerly occupied by electrons), giving these materials a "striped" pattern of charge density waves. In some instances this striped phase can be disrupted by another phase that results in distortions of the stripes. In iron-based superconductors, Davis' experiments revealed a nematic liquid-crystal-like phase. And in the heavy fermion superconductors, other exotic electronic states occur.
"When so many intertwined phases were discovered in the cuprates, I was strongly discouraged because I thought, 'How are we going to understand all these phases?'" said Lee. But after the discovery of the iron-based superconductors about five years ago, and their similarities with the cuprates, Lee began to believe there must be some common factor. "Samus was thinking along a similar line experimentally," he said.
In the current paper, Davis and Lee propose and demonstrate within a simple model that antiferromagnetic electron interactions can drive both superconductivity and the various intertwined phases across different families of high-Tc superconductors. These intertwined phases and the emergence of superconductivity, they say, can be explained by how the antiferromagnetic influence interacts with another variable in their theoretical description, namely the "Fermi surface topology."
"The Fermi surface is a property of all metals and provides a 'fingerprint' of the specific arrangements of electrons that are free to move that is characteristic of each compound," Davis said. "It is controlled by how many electrons are in the crystal, and by the symmetry of the crystal, among other things, so it is quite different in different materials."
The theory developed by Lee incorporates the overarching antiferromagnetic electron interactions and the known differences in Fermi surface from material to material. Using calculations to "dial up" the strength of the magnetic interactions or vary the Fermi surface characteristics, the theory can predict the types of electronic phases that should emerge up to and including the superconductivity for all those different conditions.
"The basic assumption of our theory is that when we rip away all the complicated intertwined phases, underneath there is an ordinary metal," said Lee. "It is the antiferromagnetic interactions in this metal that make the electrons want to form the various states. The complex behavior originates from the system fluctuating from one state to another, e.g., from superconductor to charge density waves to nematic order. It is the antiferromagnetic interaction acting on the underlying simple metal that causes all the complexity."
"So far this theory has correctly produced all the electronic phases that we have observed in each type of strongly correlated superconductor," Davis said.
The next step is to search through new materials and use the theory to identify which should operate in similar ways -- and then put them to the test to see if they follow the predictions.
"It is one thing to say, 'If we have the key ingredients, then a material is likely to exhibit high Tc superconductivity.' It is quite another thing to know which materials will have these key characteristics,'" Lee said.
If the search pays off, it could lead to the identification or development of superconductors that can be used even more effectively than those that are known today -- potentially transforming our energy landscape.
###
This research was funded by the DOE Office of Science, in part through the Center for Emergent Superconductivity, a DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov
Related Links
Scientific paper: "Concepts relating magnetic interactions, intertwined electronic orders, and strongly correlated superconductivity" http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/10/09/1316512110.full.pdf+html
One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
A grand unified theory of exotic superconductivity?
Public release date: 17-Oct-2013 [
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: Karen McNulty Walsh kmcnulty@bnl.gov 631-344-8350 DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
Scientists introduce a general theoretical approach that describes all known forms of high-temperature superconductivity and their 'intertwined' phases
UPTON, NY -- Years of experiments on various types of high-temperature (high-Tc) superconductorsmaterials that offer hope for energy-saving applications such as zero-loss electrical power lines -- have turned up an amazing array of complex behaviors among the electrons that in some instances pair up to carry current with no resistance, and in others stop the flow of current in its tracks. The variety of these exotic electronic phenomena is a key reason it has been so hard to identify unifying concepts to explain why high-Tc superconductivity occurs in these promising materials.
Now Samus Davis, a physicist who's conducted experiments on many of these materials at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cornell University, and Dung-Hai Lee, a theorist at DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, postulate a set of key principles for understanding the superconductivity and the variety of "intertwined" electronic phenomena that applies to all the families of high-Tc superconductors. They describe these general concepts in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences October 10, 2013.
"If we are right, this is kind of the 'light at the end of the tunnel' point," said Davis. "After decades of wondering which are the key things we need to understand high-Tc superconductivity and which are the peripheral things, we think we have identified what the essential elements are."
Said Lee, "The next step is to be able to predict which other materials will have these essential elements that will drive high Tc superconductivity -- and that ability is still under development."
The role of magnetism
In all known types of high-Tc superconductors -- copper-based (cuprate), iron-based, and so-called heavy fermion compounds -- superconductivity emerges from the "extinction" of antiferromagnetism, the ordered arrangement of electrons on adjacent atoms having anti-aligned spin directions. Electrons arrayed like tiny magnets in this alternating spin pattern are at their lowest energy state, but this antiferromagnetic order is not beneficial to superconductivity.
However if the interactions between electrons that cause antiferromagnetic order can be maintained while the actual order itself is prevented, then superconductivity can appear. "In this situation, whenever one electron approaches another electron, it tries to anti-align its magnetic state," Davis said. Even if the electrons never achieve antiferromagnetic order, these antiferromagnetic interactions exert the dominant influence on the behavior of the material. "This antiferromagnetic influence is universal across all these types of materials," Davis said.
Many scientists have proposed that these antiferromagnetic interactions play a role in the ability of electrons to eventually pair up with anti-aligned spins -- a condition necessary for them to carry current with no resistance. The complicating factor has been the existence of many different types of "intertwined" electronic phases that also emerge in the different types of high-Tc superconductors -- sometimes appearing to compete with superconductivity and sometimes coexisting with it.
Intertwined phases
In the cuprates, for example, regions of antiferromagnetic alignment can alternate with "holes" (vacancies formerly occupied by electrons), giving these materials a "striped" pattern of charge density waves. In some instances this striped phase can be disrupted by another phase that results in distortions of the stripes. In iron-based superconductors, Davis' experiments revealed a nematic liquid-crystal-like phase. And in the heavy fermion superconductors, other exotic electronic states occur.
"When so many intertwined phases were discovered in the cuprates, I was strongly discouraged because I thought, 'How are we going to understand all these phases?'" said Lee. But after the discovery of the iron-based superconductors about five years ago, and their similarities with the cuprates, Lee began to believe there must be some common factor. "Samus was thinking along a similar line experimentally," he said.
In the current paper, Davis and Lee propose and demonstrate within a simple model that antiferromagnetic electron interactions can drive both superconductivity and the various intertwined phases across different families of high-Tc superconductors. These intertwined phases and the emergence of superconductivity, they say, can be explained by how the antiferromagnetic influence interacts with another variable in their theoretical description, namely the "Fermi surface topology."
"The Fermi surface is a property of all metals and provides a 'fingerprint' of the specific arrangements of electrons that are free to move that is characteristic of each compound," Davis said. "It is controlled by how many electrons are in the crystal, and by the symmetry of the crystal, among other things, so it is quite different in different materials."
The theory developed by Lee incorporates the overarching antiferromagnetic electron interactions and the known differences in Fermi surface from material to material. Using calculations to "dial up" the strength of the magnetic interactions or vary the Fermi surface characteristics, the theory can predict the types of electronic phases that should emerge up to and including the superconductivity for all those different conditions.
"The basic assumption of our theory is that when we rip away all the complicated intertwined phases, underneath there is an ordinary metal," said Lee. "It is the antiferromagnetic interactions in this metal that make the electrons want to form the various states. The complex behavior originates from the system fluctuating from one state to another, e.g., from superconductor to charge density waves to nematic order. It is the antiferromagnetic interaction acting on the underlying simple metal that causes all the complexity."
"So far this theory has correctly produced all the electronic phases that we have observed in each type of strongly correlated superconductor," Davis said.
The next step is to search through new materials and use the theory to identify which should operate in similar ways -- and then put them to the test to see if they follow the predictions.
"It is one thing to say, 'If we have the key ingredients, then a material is likely to exhibit high Tc superconductivity.' It is quite another thing to know which materials will have these key characteristics,'" Lee said.
If the search pays off, it could lead to the identification or development of superconductors that can be used even more effectively than those that are known today -- potentially transforming our energy landscape.
###
This research was funded by the DOE Office of Science, in part through the Center for Emergent Superconductivity, a DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov
Related Links
Scientific paper: "Concepts relating magnetic interactions, intertwined electronic orders, and strongly correlated superconductivity" http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/10/09/1316512110.full.pdf+html
One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.
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| Share
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Morrissey‘s much-anticipated autobiography was released in the UK last night at midnight and shortly thereafter, the first reviews of the book started to appear online. I have been anxiously awaiting the release of Moz‘s autobiography for years and am STILL waiting to get my hands on a copy (because the book is only released in the UK, I am unable to download an electronic version here in the US and my hardcopy of the book won’t be delivered to my home until tomorrow — while I am STILL away from California in Michigan! Ugh). Still, my curiosity got the better of me and I had to read what others were saying about the just-published book. Ever since I first learned that Morrissey was planning to publish his autobiography, I hoped that he would use the opportunity to talk more openly about his personal life. I know, I know … it’s really no one’s business to snoop around in anyone else’s personal relationship life but so many people (me included) have been so affected by Morrissey‘s lyrics over the many years of his career that, for me, it is important for the man to come out and admit what he has been hinting at for so many years. Despite his proclamations of “asexuality”, Morrissey has finally come out and admitted — in his own way — that he has had same-sex relationships in his life. One in particular, with his former assistant/photographer Jake Walters, is discussed in some detail in the just-published Autobiography.
Morrissey did not enter into a serious relationship until the 1990s, when he was in his mid-30s, he writes in Autobiography. When he met Jake Owen Walters, he writes, “for the first time in my life the eternal ‘I’ becomes ‘we’, as, finally, I can get on with someone”.Morrissey writes movingly about the two-year relationship. “Jake and I neither sought not needed company other than our own for the whirlwind stretch to come,” he writes. “Indulgently Jake and I test how far each of us can go before ‘being dwelt in’ causes cries of intolerable struggle, but our closeness transcends such visitations.” Morrissey never specifies whether they were lovers, but talks of sharing hotel suites, of being photographed with his head “resting on Jake’s exposed belly”, and of Jake bringing him tea in the bath. He also recounts an exchange at an airport. “‘Well,’ says the woman in the British Airways lounge, ‘you’re either very close brothers or lovers.’ ‘Can’t brothers be lovers?’ I imprudently reply – always ready with the pointlessly pert, whether sensible or not.” The ending of the relationship is described in a way that could hardly be more Morrissey – with a visit to his home by Alan Bennett, who observes the pair and says: “Now, now. What’s going on? Something’s happened, hasn’t it? … You haven’t spoken a word to each other since I arrived.” Although Autobiography never specifically addresses Morrissey’s sexuality, he talks about his lack of interest in girls as a teenager. “Girls remained mysteriously attracted to me,” he writes, “and I had no idea why, since although each fumbling foray hit the target, nothing electrifying took place, and I turned a thousand corners without caring … Far more exciting were the array of stylish racing bikes that my father would bring home.”
Altho Morrissey doesn’t explicitly say that he and Jake were lovers, it’s fairly obvious that that is what he is saying here. Morrissey has never been explicit so I don’t expect him to start spelling out details now … this is pretty much what I expected from him all along. My fear was that he would make no mention whatsoever of any relationships with anyone (male or female) and that, I think, would’ve been a huge disappointment for me. For whatever his reasons, Morrissey has chosen until now to keep this part of his life completely private. I applaud him for deciding to be open, at last, about this part of his life. The Guardian has published 10 Things Learned from Morrissey’s AutobiographyHERE, which is a great summary read of his tome for those interested. The Smiths biographer Tony Fletcher has published an extensive review of the book HERE as well. I’m choosing to stay away from any more reviews until I can read the book for myself. I’m just happy that Morrissey shared with the world some details about his relationship with Jake. It’s a relationship that longtime fans have known about but was never ever confirmed by Moz. I know he has made a career out of sadness, rejection and the maudlin … but it does make me happy to know that Morrissey has enjoyed the romantic love of another person and was truly happy once.
Math Proves Bacon Is a Miracle Food | Wired Design | Wired.com
WIRED partnered with Food Network and crunched 49,733 recipes and 906,539 comments from their massive website. The result is a fascinating overview of how Americans cook.
1. Comparing the Biggest Food Fads
2. Celebrity Chef Smackdown
3. Designing Your Thanksgiving Menu
4. America’s Food Regions
Food is so personal and subjective that we’re always talking about it in vague and imprecise ways. But one of the many amazing things you can with big-ish data is give precise questions to answers that always seemed so subjective. Take, for instance, the question of bacon. Everything is always better with bacon, right? But if so, how much? And are any foods actually worse with bacon?
We calculated the answer, following a simple methodology that made the most of the 906,539 ratings on foodnetwork.com. First, we searched out all the recipes that fit a certain description-—sandwiches, for example. Then, we calculated the average rating for those foods if they did not include the word “bacon.” We ran the numbers again using only recipes that did include bacon. The results were pretty great. Of all the foods we analyzed, bacon lends the most improvement to sandwiches. Many other foods also benefitted. In fact, we found that when you crunch the data for all recipes, those with bacon do in fact rate higher.
No surprises here! There are plenty of reasons why sandwiches might benefit the most; their slapped-together construction allows the bacon to stay crispy. Things get a little more dicey in salads and vegetables, which can let the bacon get soggy. The only foods that get worse with bacon? Pasta and desserts. An educated guess: It’s because bacon pastas are typically finicky cream sauces that are difficult to get right. And desserts often seem to render bacon fat into a congealed mess.
The bacon experiment led us down a whole branch of questions: Could we total how much chicken there is on the entire site? What about how many testicles? Could we figure out how many miles of spaghetti there are? Yes, yes, and yes! (The answers are in the charts above.) But one thing we really wanted to know was: What foods are most popular now, and how has food popularity waxed and waned over time? We looked at the rates of comments on eight faddish foods:
Big Food Fads, Over Time
Interest in these 8 foods has waxed and waned over time.
We calculated these by first finding the total number of reviews for each food. Then, we figured out what percentage of those reviews came in each quarterly period since 2007. (That arithmetic allowed us to normalize the data—-otherwise, this thing would be a huge bacon chart and everything would look tiny.) Perhaps the most surprising thing is how much the answers conform to anecdotal evidence from pop culture. Low-carb diets and Portobello burgers were totally a mid-2000’s thing. And sure enough, their popularity was tanking by 2007. Similarly, if you live on the coasts, you’ve probably found more and more restaurants and haute grocery stores touting quinoa. The trend is very recent. Bacon, though? Bacon’s always been popular, though things have accelerated ever since it’s become a full-blown meme.
Data mining: Dylan Fried; Infographics: Josef Reyes; Data Visualization: Catalogtree; Interactive charts: Systemantics.
Those long dark stretches of highway out in the middle of nowhere without any streetlights might soon be a thing of the past thanks to the engineers and designers at the Netherlands-based Kaal Masten. They've created the Spirit, a standalone solar-powered streetlight that gets all the energy it needs from the sun, so it can be installed and provide lighting anywhere—even remote locations without access to power grids.
Requiring three years to develop and perfect, the Spirit can be customized as required, even soaring almost 60 feet tall making them ideal for even large multi-lane highways. Using a combination of solar cells and high-efficient LEDs, the street light recharges its batteries during the day when the sun is out, capturing enough power—even on cloudy days—to stay lit all night long.
In fact the only maintenance they'd need is a new battery every few years, but even that part's environmentally friendly since their power supplies are completely recyclable. And since power lines don't have to be spliced and connected, installation is simple enough that it's easy for that sketchy part of town to not be so sketchy anymore. [Kaal Masten via Inhabitat]
ABC's alien comedy The Neighbors is offering its take on Halloween.
In two first looks at the Oct. 18 episode exclusive to The Hollywood Reporter, Larry Bird (Simon Templeman) comes up with the idea to combine two of his favorite holidays, Halloween and Chanukah, for what he dubs "Challoweenukah."
How does this new holiday work? Eight days of candy, dreidels, pumpkins and miracles (to signify that, he uses an image of a kitten draped in pearls). (Watch the scene below.)
Meanwhile, over at the Weaver household, they're coming up with the "perfect family Halloween costume" to celebrate the ghoulish holiday.
Naturally, they come up with what seems to be the "perfect" solution: the cast of Sex and the City!
Young Abby (Isabella Cramp) does her best Samantha impression -- complete with blonde wig, heart-shaped shades and large gold earrings. "I don't know what looks more delicious, that Cosmo or that hot Serbian…," she says in that unique Samantha drawl. Will they go through with it? (Watch the scene below.)
Reporter Glenn Greenwald, who became famous reporting on NSA contractor Edward Snowden's disclosure of the NSA's government surveillance programs, is leaving the Guardian to form a new media company with eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Vincent Yu/AP
Glenn Greenwald, the reporter and blogger who broke the story on the National Security Agency's massive surveillance program, is leaving Britain's Guardian newspaper to join a new media venture.
Reuters reported Wednesday that the project will be funded by billionaire philanthropist Pierre Omidyar. The 46-year-old Omidyar founded auction site eBay in 1995 and became a billionaire at the age of 31 during the site's 1998 initial public offering.
However, in a conversation with NYU's Jay Rosen on Tuesday, Omidyar revealed that the new venture will be funded outside of his philanthropy and with his own personal investment. He also said that there is no print product involved and it is an all-digital, for-profit news venture. It will also not be a niche product and will cover sports, business, entertainment and technology.
The news site, he said, will be based on a "personal franchise model." In essence it appears the goal is to seek out more journalists like Greenwald who "have their own reputations, deep subject matter expertise, clear points of view, an independent and outsider spirit, a dedicated online following, and their own way of working."
In a statement posted on the Omidyar Group site, he said: "I want to find ways to convert mainstream readers into engaged citizens. I think there's more that can be done in this space, and I'm eager to explore the possibilities."
The initial news of Greenwald's departure and the new media site was first reported on Tuesday by Buzzfeed. In an ironic twist, the news was leaked early, before Greenwald and Omidyar were prepared to announce it, so further details were not provided at the time.
Guardian spokeswoman Jennifer Lindauer said they were "disappointed" to lose Greenwald, but that they were leaving on good terms and considered him "a remarkable journalist."
"My partnership with the Guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling: I have high regard for the editors and journalists with whom I worked and am incredibly proud of what we achieved.
"The decision to leave was not an easy one, but I was presented with a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline."
The new site also sought to hire Laura Poitras, reports the Washington Post, the filmmaker who was instrumental in linking former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to Greenwald and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post.
Greenwald told Buzzfeed in August that he and Poitras will continue to be the only two people with full access to the documents provided by Snowden.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are surging on Wall Street as Washington closes in on a deal to avoid a default by the U.S. government.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 189 points, or 1.3 percent, to 15,357 in midday trading after news that Senate leaders had reached an agreement to avert a default and reopen the government. The bill must still pass the House of Representatives as well as the Senate.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 21 points, or 1.3 percent, to 1,719 points. The S&P 500 is now just six points below an all-time high it reached on Sept. 18.
The Nasdaq composite rose 40 points, or 1 percent, to 3,833.
Yields on Treasury bills fell as investors became less nervous about a potential default by the government.
Curt Friesen is a fourth-generation farmer in central Nebraska.
Grant Gerlock/for NPR
Curt Friesen is a fourth-generation farmer in central Nebraska.
Grant Gerlock/for NPR
Corn prices are down and the farm bill is stalled in Congress. So there's a lot of uncertainly in the air as harvest season gets into full swing across the Midwest. But this is a time of year when farm families like the Friesens in Henderson, Neb., come together to focus on the big task at hand: the corn harvest.
Everyone in the family has a job to do.
"Like my dad — he drives auger wagon," Curt Friesen says. "He drives auger wagon only. That's all he's done since 1976, I think. ... My wife, Nancy, she drives the combine; that's her job."
Curt drives a truck. So does his son-in-law, who's new on the farm. That's how the Friesens are harvesting 1,100 acres of corn this fall, about middle of the pack in terms of its size.
With roughly 97 million acres of corn to pick nationwide, farmers are pulling in family and friends as part-time help to haul in the crop.
Nancy Friesen grasps the orange joystick that controls the Friesens' giant John Deere combine, which is so big, it makes the cornstalks look like matchsticks.
"It is a humongous piece of equipment," she says, "and it is intimidating. It's got all kinds of bells and whistles to let you know what's going wrong."
During corn harvest, it's all hands on deck on the Friesen family farm in Henderson, Neb. Nancy Friesen typically takes the controls of their John Deere combine.
Grant Gerlock/for NPR
During corn harvest, it's all hands on deck on the Friesen family farm in Henderson, Neb. Nancy Friesen typically takes the controls of their John Deere combine.
Grant Gerlock/for NPR
Nancy Friesen isn't totally comfortable in the driver's seat. Even a modestly priced combine costs $350,000, and most of the year she's in the garden, not the field. But she expressed some relief as she mowed down the cornstalks and watched the grain flow in.
"It is a good feeling when the corn is in the bin and we don't have to worry about it out here anymore," she says. "So many weird weather things can happen," like last year's drought, which was the worst since the 1950s.
The drought caused corn yields to dry up across the Midwest. The Friesens were lucky — irrigation saved most of their crop. And farmers who irrigate reaped the rewards last year, as drought shrunk supply, pushing corn prices to record highs of over $8 a bushel.
Of course, drought can also be disastrous at harvest time, as Albert Friesen, Curt's 92-year-old dad, knows firsthand.
When Albert Friesen started farming he used horses, not green tractors. In 1938, at age 16, he took over the farm after his dad died. The next year a drought hit and the crop was ruined.
"There was nothing here," he says. "Everything dried up. I went to Minnesota to pick corn by hand."
He brought home $69, just enough to keep the farm. That was a tough year.
"But I think we're in for some tough times yet again," he says.
Tough in comparison to last year, at least — 2013 could be the biggest corn harvest in history: The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated 13.8 billion bushels. With so much supply, corn prices have been shrinking since the beginning of the year and are down around a three-year low, though prices remain quite healthy by historical standards.
Still, it's not clear what the crop will be worth by the time it's in the bin. That uncertainty comes just as Jason Lewis, the Friesens' son-in-law, is joining the family farm. A year ago, Lewis was in a college classroom. He wasn't a student — he was the professor.
"This time last year, I was at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, and I was probably teaching turf grass science class," Lewis says.
Now the 35-year-old Ph.D. from Kearney, Neb., is hauling corn and wearing earbuds so he can listen to podcasts while he's in the field.
During a break in the action, Nancy said she is grateful to have extra help on hand.
"I love it when I can hear Curt and Jason talking in the shop and he's got somebody to talk shop to," she says. "I love having the kids back. It takes the pressure off so much."
But Nancy couldn't talk for long. Albert had an empty grain wagon. Jason had a truck to fill. She plunged the combine into the standing corn. The harvest grind will go on for another four to six weeks.
"It's just pretty much harvest," Nancy says. "I try to clear the schedule. I just figure nothing really happens in October."
At least, not until the last load of corn comes in.
Grant Gerlock reports from Nebraska for NET News andHarvest Public Media,a public radio reporting collaboration that focuses on agriculture and food production issues.
TOKYO (Reuters) - SoftBank Corp is in talks to buy a stake in U.S. wireless device distributor Brightstar Corp in a deal that media reported could be worth more than $1 billion and would boost its bargaining power with hardware suppliers.
The company's billionaire founder Masayoshi Son has said that one of the key benefits of an earlier purchase of U.S. mobile carrier Sprint Corp would be to bolster the group's position with handset makers, an industry dominated globally by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc.
The Nikkei business daily said the Japanese tech and telecoms group was in the final stages of talks to buy an up to 70 percent stake in Brightstar in a transaction worth more than 100 billion yen ($1 billion).
SoftBank said in a statement: "We are in discussions on this matter but at this time we have not made any decision."
The talks mark a renewed acquisition drive by SoftBank after the $21.6 billion Sprint purchase completed in July.
SoftBank, Japan's third-largest company by market capitalization, said on Tuesday it would pay 150 billion yen for a 51 percent stake in Finnish mobile game maker Supercell, whose hit games include "Clash of Clans" and "Hay Day.
"The volume effects and bargaining effects should begin to emerge in handsets in about six months to a year," Son told an event in late September, referring to the Sprint acquisition.
"Our negotiating power has got a major boost."
According to Brightstar's website, it purchases handsets from more than 100 manufacturers including Samsung, Apple, LG Electronics Inc and Sony Corp, supplying carriers in markets worldwide.
The Nikkei said SoftBank would make the purchase from an investment fund and other sources with an eye to eventually boosting its holding to around 70 percent. It added that the deal would be completed as early as the end of this year.
SoftBank's shares rose 2.2 percent to 7,400 yen on Wednesday, their highest close in a week, compared with a 0.2 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei average. SoftBank has gained 136 percent since the start of the year, far outpacing the Nikkei's nearly 40 percent rise.
($1 = 98.5950 Japanese yen)
(Reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo and Edmund Klamann; Editing by Michael Urquhart)
Apple CEO Tim Cook has opened up to the rest of the company about the hiring of Angela Ahrendts, Apple's new Senior Vice President of Retail. In a company-wide memo this morning, Cook outlined how Ahrendts was hired, and how confident he is in Ahrendts' ability to lead both the physical and online retail teams. The memo also discussed why Ahrendts fits so well with Apple's culture, according to 9to5Mac
"She shares our values and our focus on innovation. She places the same strong emphasis as we do on the customer experience. She cares deeply about people and embraces our view that our most important resource and our soul is our people. She believes in enriching the lives of others and she is wicked smart. Angela has shown herself to be an extraordinary leader throughout her career and has a proven track record. She led Burberry through a period of phenomenal growth with a focus on brand, culture, core values and the power of positive energy."
Cook also thanked Apple's retail team for their work while a new retail head was found. Apple's previous retail leader, John Browett, left the company last year as part of Tim Cook's executive shuffle. Ahrendts will spend the rest of 2013 transitioning from her current role as CEO of Burberry. She is expected to start her work at Apple in the spring of 2014.
What do you want to see from Apple's new head of retail? Let us know below in the comments.
Hello everyone, can you believe it’s already the middle of October? Where does the time go? I love the fall season and I thought I would share some of my favorite things this week. I am so lucky to have some of my friend’s suggestions.
Courtesy of Lea Black
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Sarah Rayer, my social media pro, shared with me this great blog, Ms. Mishigas, about living, loving and surviving cancer. I love the logo; the best part is it is a temporary tattoo! What a great symbol. Log on to get yours here.
Courtesy of Lea Black
My spiritual bible Do You QuantumThink? by Dianne Collins is my go to daily source for inspiration and motivation. I have been using this book as a “guide to” for my everyday life and career for many years. One of my favorite affirmations from the book is “What enhances life force? Purity, clarity, focus and awareness.” Available through order here.
Courtesy of Lea Black
I love this look, the color and style of this trench coat over the classic black and white is a perfect ensemble for a work day and night transition! This is something I would try interpret to fit my shape and form of my body. All that is missing in the model’s hand is my black Starstruck clutch, a perfect accessory for after five, night out on the town.
Courtesy of Lea Black
And of course beauty! You know how much I protect my skin from the sun, but that doesn’t mean, I don’t like a nice little glow, my friend Edward Cruz, (makeup artist to clients like Anna Wintour) swears by SONIA KASHUK Undetectable Creme Bronzer. It gives your skin a second chance, when it comes to looking 10 years younger!!! How fun is that!
What’s your favorite beauty product these days? Are you all caught up on Real Housewives of Miami? Tell us in the comments below or tweet us @OKMagazine.
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